Sacrifice
by Airyckah-Nyckole
Summary: HGBZ She sacrificed so much. And why? For a simple thing.


Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter or the song "sacrifice"

Can you tell me, softly  
How you'll always haunt me  
Can you help me  
Hold me  
Come to me now, slowly  
You caress me, smoothly  
Calm my fears and soothe me  
Move your hands across me  
Take my worries from me

I will sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
All I have in life  
To clear my conscience

I will sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
All I have in life  
Sacrifice, sacrifice  
Can you feel me, solely  
Deeper still and wholly  
With your understanding  
And your arms around me  
Can you help me  
Hold me  
Whisper to me, softly  
Move your hands across me  
Take my worries from me

I will sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
All I have in life  
To clear my conscience  
I will sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
All I have in life  
Sacrifice, sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
Will sacrifice  
Will sacrifice  
Will sacrifice

I will sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
All I have in life  
To clear my conscience  
I will sacrifice  
I will sacrifice  
All I have in life  
Sacrifice, sacrifice

Sacrifice, tATu

XzXzX

One might have gone as far as to say that Hermione Granger was no longer Hermione Granger. But she would argue. 'I am Hermione Granger, and always have been Hermione Granger. But times change, and long with that people. And as much as I know Harry and Ron will deny that I have changed, I know I have,' is what she might say. With one look, you could tell that she had changed.

Her long curly hair was no longer the brunette mass that it had been; it now fell in graceful wavy curls around her shoulders, jet black, the colour of her favour now. Her eyes were still the deep chocolate brown, but the happiness that she had had was long since dissipated. In its replace was a dark sorrow that suited her new found personality, a personality that only some people could find agreeable. Those people being neither Harry nor Ron.

At the beginning of Hermione's seventh year at Hogwarts, or what would have been as the school found its doors closed, everything in her life changed. It started with a death.

She had returned home from Bill and Fleur's wedding. As much as she had wanted to stay with Ginny and Ron, and they had wanted her to stay too, Molly and Arthur had both thought that for the time being it would be best if the eighteen year old returned to her own home, away from magic for a while and into the world of muggles. And so she had returned home, only to find darkness filling the contours of the house.

She entered, calling out for her parents. _They should be here,_ she thought. When she reached the living room, she found them. With a flick of the light switch the room was filled with the diluted light from the light shade, and there they were. Her father was in his chair, his arms hanging over the armrests loosely, his head flopped back, eyes open blankly. Her mother was on the floor, face down, limbs bent at odd angles.

There was too much shock, to much fear to scream. She dropped her bag, falling back into the wall behind her. 'Oh god…' she whispered. She started reaching for her wand, frantic, misguided movements, knowing that the killer must still be in the house.

'But your wand down,' came a bored voice from a shadowy corner. She did as she was told, dropping it onto the hardwood floor. Out of the shadows stepped the man who had commanded her to put down the wand. The black haired Blaise Zabini stood with is arms crossed over his chest, wand in hand, leaning sideways into the wall beside him. He wore all black; a black buttoned, long sleeved shirt, and black trousers. 'Hermione Granger. It's been what… three? Four months? You look good.' He pushed himself off the wall, arms still crossed.

'What…. What do you want, Blaise?'

'_I _don't want anything… The Dark Lord would like to talk with you.' He started reaching for her for her wrist, but she retracted.

'Fuck no.'

'Now now, Granger, there's no need for that language.' He finally got a hold of her and apparated away.

That was how it all started. Two deaths. And it, in a way, ended with three. Because when Hermione went through the drastic change that she did, the bookworm, golden trio Hermione died. So I suppose that that accounts for three deaths.

Either way, Hermione Granger wasn't the Hermione Granger everyone used to know. She became a Death Eater; she became what she used to fight. She became everything that had hated, what had killed her parents. But she relished the power. With everything she had gave up, the freedom, she had even relinquished her friends, to become what they had all fought alongside with her against. And that was what she had became. She had sacrificed her life for one that she could just barely live; rarely leaving the castle in southern England that the Death Eaters occupied.

And why had she done it? For simple infatuation. But it was an infatuation that was mutual. Every night in the castle she could be found in the same place; in the room that was shared between her and the young man Blaise Zabini. If one wandered accidentally into the room, they would most likely find the two curled up on the queen bed together, Hermione's hair fanning out under her head on the pillow. They might find Blaise lying atop of her, his head on her chest, ear to her breast, listening to the soft beat of her heart. But I do not believe that one would even accidentally stumble onto the couple, for everyone knew also of Blaise's temper.

But that is beside the point. When Blaise had first brought Hermione to the Dark Lord, She had turned Voldemort and his offer down coldly, knowing that she couldn't do that to her friends. But Voldemort was confident that she would change her mind. He gave her one week, saying that she would return to him in a week with her answer, and he ordered Blaise to be her escort for the week.

By the end of the week he had her promise to join the Dark Lord. To sacrifice everything she held dear to be a Death Eater. Which she did.

XzXzX

'Hermione…' Hermione forced her eyes open, knowing that he just wasn't whispering her name from the passion of the moment. Her eyes met his silver ones, his hand running over the smooth skin of her waist. 'We go to war tomorrow.' She nodded, knowing. 'What if we died tomorrow, Hermione? Would you mourn me?' She nodded, and meant it from her heart.

'Blaise, you're the only person who means something in my life now. I'd mourn, of course I would.' He caught her lips in a long kiss before speaking again.

'I love you.'

Was it infatuation? Could someone really love her? Those were the things she wondered when he said the words. Those were the things that made her want to go out there and kill everyone who got in her way all the more, just so he wouldn't die.

His skin was warm against hers as she pulled him against her, arching herself into him, kissing him again.

'If this was our last night together, would you regret anything?' he asked. She shook her head.

'I love you. Everything up to this moment has been perfect. It's been perfect by how imperfect it's been. I gave up everything for the imperfection, Blaise, and I will relish every moment we've had together."

XzXzX

The war was everything she had prepared for. The blood, the stench. Death seemed to be calling everywhere she looked. She took as many lives as she needed too to protect herself that fateful day. And when the rain fell, She killed again, the slate wiped anew as the blood was washed away into the dirt, the dirt of time past, as the rain washed the blood and guilt from her hands.

She killed Ron. She killed Ginny. She had killed Ron as he tried to protect Ginny, and Ginny as she had cried over her brother's death, and over Hermione's death too, I suppose. Hermione killed Fleur; stealing from Bill not only a wife, but an unborn child, just three months into the pregnancy. She killed and she stole. But only because she did not want something of hers taken from her.

And when the rain stopped and Harry fell, she fell. She collapsed under the pain of Death and blood, and love and hate, and when Blaise found her she cried. She cried not for the loss and what she had done, but for the sacrifice that she had made. She cried for Blaise and she cried for love. Infatuation.

XzXzX

Fini

There ya go. Ciao.


End file.
